I got hooked on NBC's Lipstick Jungle during its first season, and can't wait to see what happens with the girls in season two, premiering Wed., Sept. 24 at 10/9c. Look for my reviews of the show on TV Squad, as well.

While I've already found my Mr. Right, I still identify with all three women in one way or another. Like movie exec Wendy (Brooke Shields), I'm doing my best to balance career and family. Like Victory (Lindsay Price), I have a whole bunch of dreams and goals on my list. And like Nico (Kim Raver), I'm an overachieving workaholic. And if not for the aforementioned Mr. Right, I'd have a really tough time saying no to Robert Buckley's bedroom eyes, too.

It's coming. The table is set, the players are on the field, the sails are raised, and the pretty maids are all in a row. Of course, I speak of the 2008-09 television schedule. In just a few short weeks viewers will be able to dine on a number of favorite and new dishes that are being served by the networks as well as the increasing number of cable channels who are delving into original programming.

While other fall seasons have come and gone with nary a whimper, this season may be different. Due to the prolonged Writers Strike many shows ended their seasons quite early. Programs like Life, Private Practice, Pushing Daisies, and Heroes haven't aired original episodes since the end of 2007. Heck, there hasn't been a new episode of The Shield since June of last year! So, the beginning of the 2008-09 season will be a second chance for some of these shows, particularly the ones that premiered last season, to show their worth to fans and the networks.

Today was the very last day of the press tour here in Beverly Hills. It was "TCA Day," with members of the association (including me) going to the Warner Brothers lot to visit the sets of ER, Pushing Daisies, and Chuck, where we spoke to cast members and producers (Oh, we went to the set of America's Best Dance Crew, but let's just forget I mentioned that one). Then we bused it over to the Fox lot, where Joss Whedon showed us around the set of Dollhouse, and the entire cast of King of the Hill gave a table read of their 250th episode. All this fun will be in upcoming posts later this summer.

Despite some of the griping you may have seen from me, it's been lots of fun. It's just a very tiring experience. Case in point: On Monday, NBC decided to close out the press conference portion of the tour by having us sit through ten panels, five of them after lunch. Here's a wrap-up post that goes over some of what went on yesterday that I haven't already covered.

WhenLipstick Jungle comes back for the new season on Wednesday, September 24, we already know that Wendy's life will be impacted by the appearance of her challenging, iconic mother Joyce, played by television great Mary Tyler Moore.

Television icon Mary Tyler Moore guest star on NBC's Lipstick Jungle. She will play Wendy Healy's (Brooke Shields) mother Joyce, a retired high-powered executive. Joyce will force Wendy to question whether or not she can have it all: the successful career and the happy family. A trailblazer for working women back int he 1970s, Joyce's concerns for Wendy leave her overachieving daughter in a tailspin.

Of the guest starring role, Moore has commented, "I'm fortunate to have had a front row seat to the evolution of working women on television. It's been great fun to watch the strong female characters of Lipstick Jungle go at it week after week. I absolutely adore Brooke and I'm delighted to be a part of a show which is so well written."

Brooke Shields feels lucky to have Moore on her show, which goes into its second season this fall: "I am excited and extremely honored to have an actress of Mary Tyler Moore's stature and talent join our show." Lipstick Jungle premieres Wednesday September 24th at 10-11 p.m. ET.

Good chemistry between TV couples is a rare commodity, but when Robert Buckley and Kim Raver heat up the screen as Kirby and Nico on Lipstick Jungle, there's some major fireworks flying around.

Much of that spark can be attributed to Buckley, who inhabits the role of Kirby so well that it hardly seems like he's playing a part. Buckley took over the role from Will Toale, who played the part in the pilot episode.

The 26-year-old actor really hasn't been on the TV scene all that long. He got his start playing two roles on MyNetworkTV prime time dramas: photographer Michael Bauer on 2006's Fashion House; and Matthew Wakefield on 2007's American Heiress.

Last week's episode of The Office now ranks high on my list of Awkward TV Moments. It got me thinking about other all-time great awkward TV moments. Sure, we've all seen the episode where a disheveled Mary Richards shows up at the awards banquet wearing one fuzzy pink slipper. And the one where Frasier and Roz nearly do it on a cruise ship. But let's take a look at a few recent awkward TV moments.1. Jan heaves a Dundee at Michael's flat-screen TV. Okay, we'll start with last week's episode of The Office, in which Michael coerces Jim and Pam into attending a couples-only dinner party at his and Jan's condo. The entire episode is one long awkward moment, from Dwight showing up with his former babysitter as his date to Pam realizing she'll be held hostage for three hours, thanks to Jan's poor culinary planning. But the topper is when Michael and Jan's love spat escalates into a huge fight, ending with her heaving one of his treasured Dundee awards at his new (and tiny) flat-screen TV. The cops show up after the neighbors report a disturbance, and Michael ends up going home with Dwight.

The world of primetime TV are primarily set in the real world. The real world based on the fiction they create. So, Law and Order -- in all its incarnations -- is set in New York City, but it's not the real five boroughs. The newspapers they read are not The New York Times, the Post or the Daily News. For contemporary TV fiction, reality is on the margins of the storytelling because you can't really set those characters in a real world. However, when the two worlds intersect, the results can be magic. Here's 8 big-time, primetime examples:

1) Cowboy Up TimeRemember the episode of Lost when Ben wanted to convince Jack that he was in communication with the world outside the island? To prove that he was telling the truth, he showed Jack a video of the Boston Red Sox winning the world series in 2004. You can't get more real than that, right? And yet it was used in one of the most out of this world shows on the air. In fact, using Lost's own terminology, the Red Sox video is a constant truth in a universe that's a complete fiction.

NBC advertised this week's episode of Lipstick Jungle as the "season finale." Yet, about a month ago, they ordered six more episodes of the series saying that season one would get 13 episodes. NBC probably doesn't want LJ to face shows like Lost; so the network probably decided to air those six episodes next season in a less threatening timeslot. Let's face it, the series, even if it definitely got better over time, is not the best out there. It benefited a lot from the strike since it aired without much of competition.

Even if the season finale could have been more rocking, it was a satisfying episode that left viewers with a few questions such as: Was Charles really cheating?, Did Nico take the right decision?, Did Joe have a one-night stand or was this woman a "regular"?, Will Victory forgive Joe since, technically, he didn't cheat?, etc.

I felt sorry for Wendy as I watched about 4/5 of the episode unfold. (I had to tape the episode and the VCR decided to not be my friend and stopped around 45 minutes in! Thanks NBC for complete recaps of the episodes.) Not only did Wendy go to a meeting she didn't want to go but she had the unpleasant surprise to learn that not only one of her best friend has been lying to her for weeks but that Nico also flew her boy toy half across the world for a booty call!

(S01E05) Well, I am certainly enjoying Lipstick Jungle more than Cashmere Mafia. I like it so much that I jumped at the opportunity to fill in for Isabelle and review this week's episode.

Of course, lots of people expected the two shows to be almost the same (just different nights and channels). And the shows do have similarities: big stars with big paychecks (Lucy Liu, Brooke Shields), female characters in powerful jobs, stupid titles, etc. But as I sat through the first few episodes of Lipstick Jungle, I knew it would be a much more gratifying show. LJ is nowhere near Sex and the City or Desperate Housewives, but it certainly has potential.

Okay, enough preamble. After the jump, I'll talk about "Chapter Five: Dressed to Kill," I promise.

While the casting for the ladies to play the power brokers on NBC's Lipstick Jungle was imperative, no less attention was paid for the men with whom those women would be romantically entwined. For the character of Joe Bennett, the enigmatic, high-powered, complicated Prince Charming with a dark side, producers had to be looking for just the right combination of sexual appeal and sensitive undercurrent. They found the right guy when Andrew McCarthy was cast. The former Brat Packer could be the find of the TV season; the new McDreamy.

If we look at what Lipstick Jungleoffers us, indeed, people in the movie, fashion, or magazine business are easy targets. Wendy's ex-nanny wrote a book, Victory's career was destroyed by one bad collection, and Nico had to face a fake lawsuit that had some truth to it (even Nico admits that what she did could be seen as sexual harassment).

This week's episode closed the books on the lawsuit Kirby filed against Nico but it didn't end their relationship. Why did he really do it? Even if Mike was the snake behind the ordeal, Kirby agreed to go forward yet all he wanted was Nico...

The fate of ABC's Women's Murder Clubhas been determined...at least for the rest of this season. After a shake-up in the production team early this month which resulted in co-creators/producers Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain, as well and exec-producer R. Scott Gemmill, all being dispatched, Robert Nathan (Law and Order) has been named showrunner.

Nathan will produce three more original episodes this season to be aired as early as April. This is good news for fans of the femme detective series based on crime novelist James Pattersons' bestsellers. The hour drama premiered last October to generally poor reviews, but did well enough in the Nielsens to encourage ABC that they might have a hit on their hands. As the week's passed, the ratings dipped. The ten episodes that aired averaged a 6.1 rating/11 share; 38th place overall. Not gangbusters, but pretty good.